


Sincerely Yours

by eightminutes



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Love Letters, M/M, Police/Thief AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5536925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightminutes/pseuds/eightminutes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exchanging letters with the criminal wasn't a option. Neither was falling in love with him. AU in which Roy Mustang is a long suffering police officer, and Ed is determined to be a brat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sincerely Yours

To be entirely honest, coming alone was probably the highlight of a long list of Dumb Things Roy Mustang Attempted - penned, produced and signed by Riza Hawkeye. It had all gone downhill so quickly.

Roy had been completely confident when they’d gotten the tip about unusual activity around the Youswell mansion. There was a soiree there this weekend, to be attended by some the wealthiest patrons in Central, and it was entirely too predictable for there would be a plot around this. The owner, Yoki, had made his fortune in the mining industry.

Mistake number one became apparent when the theft happened just a day later, a full three days before the planned gathering.

“Don’t think this excuses you from the paperwork, sir,” Hawkeye had thought fit to tell him as they got in the car. Roy scowled back. In his head.

The Youswell security personnel seemed cooperative enough, even if none of them reported seeing anyone enter before the alarm went off. The owner was a different story.

“Oh, thank goodness you are here! I don’t know why I even bother hiring all these guards when they’re all useless!” Roy frowned at the man who had scurried forth and latched himself onto Roy’s arm. “How could this happen to me! Me, the great Yoki!”

Roy pulled his arm back. “I apologize for this happening. We’ll do everything we can.”

The rest of his team were already onsite. Breda briefed him on the layout of the building. “This is the most likely route our thief took.” He traced a line from the West Wing towards a room near the center. “There’s apparently a set of stairs here that lead down to where the good are.”

“What kind of valuables are we speaking of?” Roy asked.

Breda shrugged. “The most expensive thing is a painting, but I doubt a thief would try and steal something like that in broad daylight. There’s a lot down there, but not much you can grab easily, even with a team.”

A trap then?

Fuery ran up to confirm that no one had been captured on the security cameras, not even the ones surrounding the perimeter. There was no footage of the thief in the building, though there were a few odd frames in the video. This was quickly taking an unexpected turn towards hinting at professional crime. 

“Havoc, Falman and Breda, take the East Wing. Hawkeye and myself will secure the West Wing. We’ll meet in the middle. Fuery, keep communications open and keep an eye on video footage.” Roy ignored Yoki’s continued rant in the background, and turned to face the head of security. “Man every hallway and entrance. No one is to enter or leave the premise until we have declared it safe.”

Mistake number two had been relying on the Youswell guards.

They’d secured half of the wing by the time Roy recognized his nagging sense of unease.

“Sir.” Roy glanced over to Hawkeye, who was standing stock still, one hand on her gun. “It’s been too quiet.”

It hadn’t been apparent at first, but now it was appallingly clear that they were the only ones in the vicinity when there should have been more guards. Roy shot her a look before he reached down for his radio, fearing the worst.

A jolt of static, and then white noise.

He saw Hawkeye reach for her own and shake her head.

Roy kept one eye on the end of the hallway while he fumbled for the cellphone in his pocket (strictly against protocol). No signal.

“Mission’s over,” he said, even as Hawkeye had already uncocked her gun and was signaling for Roy to start retreating. He felt her press to him, back to back, as they rounded the first corner.

“Officers!” Roy swerved around, but Hawkeye was already in position, gun up. In front of them was a guard, his hands up and looking terrified. Roy nodded and Hawkeye slowly lowered her gun.

“What’s going on?” Roy asked.

The guard dropped his hands. “We must have lost communication, but I’m not sure how long ago. I decided to head out. I don’t know where everyone else went, but thank goodness I ran into you guys!”

Roy made a mental catalogue of the man - average height and build, black hair tied into a ponytail. Spoke with a slight accent. Otherwise unremarkable.

Roy threw on a smile, because he was nothing if not charming. He could picture Hawkeye rolling her eyes. “Good plan. We were just thinking of doing the same.” He waved for the guard to lead the way.

“I can’t believe this,” the guard grumbled. “In all the years I’ve here, this has never happened before.” Chatty, but understandably so. It was a hard day all around. “I bet the thief is a huge brat and -”

“Hands up.”

Hawkeye had her gun cocked and pressed to the back of the guard’s head. His hands remained at his side.

“I said hands up,” Hawkeye repeated. Slowly, the hands came up. Roy caught the sharp sliver of a grin on the man’s face, gone so fast he wasn’t sure if it had been there.

“I apologize, but what seems to be the problem?” the man asked. Roy’s gun was now out.

“When did you start working here?” Hawkeye said.

“A few years back.”

Around them, everything fell silent. “Funny that you never got a suit that fit,” Hawkeye replied with any humor.

Damn, Roy really needed to be sharper than this. It was hard to tell when the suit jacket wasn’t buttoned, but it was obviously made for a larger man.

“Ah, I sent my usual in for dry cleaning and I couldn’t find the spare. This is borrowed.”

“I suppose your shoes are borrowed as well?”

Where there should have been dress shoes were what appeared to be comfortable slippers.

“How astute.”

The man ducked and swung around. Hawkeye fired a shot that narrowly went over his shoulder. They had stopped in the intersection between two hallways, and Roy assumed he would run for it and moved to block him. However, with a backflip and a twist of his torso that should have been impossible, the man swung a leg out and knocked Roy in the wall. His gun clattered to the ground.

Roy barely ducked in time to avoid the punch aimed at his head. He heard more gunshots, but in the wrong direction. Where was Hawkeye?

Roy dived down for his gun. The man did the same and kicked it down the hallway. Roy followed it path long enough to see Hawkeye aiming at another figure dressed in all black and hidden behind a mask.

Roy had complete faith in her abilities, but it didn’t stop the instinctual urge to rush to her side. Unfortunately, he was blocked by a kick that he narrowly dodged, pushing himself upright again. Hawkeye was going to kill him for never taking those close combat lessons seriously and forgetting the backup gun.

“Boss!” Roy couldn’t spare looking behind him, but instinctively ducked down. A second later, he heard gunshots.

Roy glanced behind to see Havoc running towards them, trailed closely by the rest of his team. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to deter the duo. He saw the man reach a hand into his trousers pocket.

“They’re armed!” Roy shouted as a set of knives flew down the hallway.

Against a well-trained team, the two surely had no chance. At least that’s what Roy told himself when he was suddenly speeding down a side hallway by himself. It had happened so fast it took him a few moments of adrenaline dazed thinking to realize why he’d done it. Amidst the fighting, he’d seen a brief flash of someone run by one of the connecting hallways and had given chase without a thought. His team was experienced enough to function without him.

It took a few more seconds for him to realize that he wasn’t sure if any of his men saw him slip away. Roy frowned - it wasn’t like him to do things unplanned like this.

Hence, mistake number three - coming alone.

“Hey!” Roy shouted at the figure at the other end of the room. A bedroom, Roy realized. “Hands up!”

The person froze and glanced up. Roy hesitated briefly when he realized how young he was. Golden hair and golden eyes that widened briefly in surprise.

“Hands up!” Roy shouted again, reaching for his gun before realizing it was on the ground somewhere in another hallway. He reached for the radio instead, hoping the thief wouldn’t notice the blunder.

The thief grinned. “Damn Ling, you had one job,” he muttered, but didn’t seem angry. If anything, he seemed kind of pleased.

“You’re under arrest,” Roy added, even if it seemed kind of redundant at this point.

“Aren’t you supposed to catch me in the act or something before you say that?”

“…You’ve been watching too many police dramas.”

The thief had the gall to laugh at that, which made him seem even younger than before. His eyes bright, one hand on his hip, he said, “You guys seem way cooler on TV anyways.”

What a brat. Roy was not paid enough to deal with this. In any case, without a weapon or means of communications, Roy could only hope to stall the man long enough that his team realized where he had wandered off to.

“The rest of your team’s already been captured. You should come quietly,” Roy said.

The man grinned back. “Nah, I highly doubt that.”

This wasn’t going anywhere, but as long as the guy wasn’t making any moves, Roy was fine staring him down.

“How old are you even?” Roy asked.

The man bristled. “Who are you calling short for his age and too small to fit into handcuffs?”

Roy resisted smiling. “Your words, not mine.”

The man huffed. “Whatever. What do you care anyways.” And then, in the most abrupt 180 Roy had seen, the man gave Roy a quick once over out of the corner of his eye, so quick Roy was sure he’d imagined it.

“In any case, you shouldn’t have to resort to stealing,” Roy said placatingly. Where was his team? “You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”

The man snorted. “What, like you know me? Damn, you should have gone into politics instead so you can schmooze people who’d actually fall for it.”

“I mean it.” Roy took a step closer. “There’s no reason why you should resort to crime.”

“Maybe if you guys actually did your job correctly.”

Not this again. Roy took a breath. Buy time, buy time, buy time. His heartbeat rang loud in his ears.

“It would be a lot easier if everyone was a model citizen like yourself.”

The man crossed his arms. “Well, I’m not the one helping out a corrupt fatass.”

Roy frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey, maybe instead of spending your time trying to arrest your upstanding citizens, you should look into Yoki and the Youswell mines.”

“What does that even -”

“Ha! I knew no one in the police force gave a shit about our reports.” He looked like he had more to say, but stopped abruptly to press a hand to his ear. He glanced up and smiled almost sheepishly. “Sorry, this was a great talk, but I gotta go now.”

What even -

“Hey!” Roy lunged at him when he started to run, and the man looked almost apologetic when he swung an arm out.

Really. Roy was having the worst day possible.

~~~

“Aww Roy, don’t be like that! It happens to the best of us.” Roy pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I know what’ll cheer you up!”

“Hughes, no.” Roy glared at the man, who was currently a dizzying blur of blue and black. Roy snapped his eyes shut again.

He felt a hand press to his shoulder. “But in all seriousness, are you okay?”

“Yes,” he lied. He’d been conscious for maybe ten minutes now, and after making sure that his team were fine, he’d insisted on talking to the sketch artist to pen down a description of the thief. Which Hawkeye promptly shot down so he could rest, because the entire department secretly deferred to her.

“Great! Now you can admire these new pictures of Elicia in their full glory!” Maes’ voice added another sharp pang of pain to Roy’s already budding almost-concussion. Roy reached out blindly to shove him away and missed.

“Roy.” Roy’s ears perked up because that was the serious tone. “There’s something fishy about this mansion.”

“Hm,” he said. Maes was silent for a miraculous second.

“Eh?” Roy winced again at the noise. “What? You knew about this?”

Roy tutted and briefly fantasized about a more pleasant life in which his rank actually meant something. “Not _knew_ , but someone I talked to said as much. Though I’m not sure how much weight there is to it.”

Maes was silent for so long Roy deigned it safe to open his eyes and scowl up at the man. Above him came the slightly blurred outline of Maes, grin feral and eyes sharp. Roy imagined he looked about the same.

~~~

The first letter came a week after the incident, in an unmarked envelope Hawkeye dropped on his desk with a raised eyebrow. Roy shrugged back. She was much too professional to sigh, but the way she spun around let him know just how aggravating it was to work with him.

He placed it on top of the mounting pile of paperwork and promptly forgot about it until two days later, when its cousin arrived on top a stack of files Hawkeye dropped on his desk.

Curiosity peaked, he set both envelopes aside as an reward for finally finishing the latest report on the Youswell burglary. The case was giving him a massive headache. No one claimed to have seen the mystery guard or his accomplice, though the guards did report getting an order to evacuate the building over their headpiece, presumably shortly before Roy bumped into the two. Nothing had been captured on the cameras, not even their prime suspect.

The worst was that nothing seemed to have been stolen. His job would have been much easier if there was indeed something obvious, but the entire mansion had been combed through and nothing was out of place. As much as he’d like to take credit for that, he knew there had been ample time for the thief to grab something.

Then there was the owner himself. Some digging revealed that there had been a few missing persons reports filed in the Youswell area in the last year, but there was no subsequent investigation. There was the collapsed mine, the worker’s riot - and that was where the paper trail ended. No reports, no follow-up. The information he managed to get was all due to Hughes’ information network.

Sighing, Roy shoved the files to one side and grabbed the two envelopes, both addressed simply to “Mustang” at the precinct without a return address. It didn’t feel like the many letters of gratitude (or love interest) he would get. For one, most of those were vetted out by Hawkeye.

 _Hey Officer Bastard_ , the first letter began. Roy groaned - of course it’d be one of those letters.

_Who the hell are you calling so tiny you mistook him for a speck on the carpet????What kind of shit description was that?_

It took Roy a few moments of flabbergasted silence to realize why those words sounded so familiar. Despite himself, he found it amusing that of all things to send to him, it had been this. He flipped the note over and peered into the envelope again, but there was nothing else.

It was oddly… adorable, like a little kid complaining about getting the smaller half of the sandwich. A little kid who could have successfully pulled off a million dollar heist.

So Roy might have described him as “short for his age” in the press conference. Short but fast. He didn’t think his thief would have paid that close attention.

The second letter started similarly.

_Hey bastard,_

_It_ ’s _about time you got off your fatass and did some work. Did you even bother to look into the whole Youswell thing? It_ ’ _s been an entire week, and I_ ’ _m sure I didn_ ’ _t punch you so hard you forgot._

Involuntarily, Roy eyed the stack of information Hughes had passed along to him, hidden among more official reports, at the bottom of a locked drawer.

There was no way to submit this letter as evidence without attracting unwanted attention. The first letter though… Roy folded it up and placed it back in the envelope. He should submit this one for evidence. There were probably finger prints, or some way to detect where it’d come from.

At the end of the day, Roy eyed the envelope again before placing it under the pile in his locked drawer.

~~~

Their second encounter was in the middle of a storm. It began after a last minute call just as Roy was heading out the door, and ended with Roy flat on his ass staring up at the thief yet again.

The cocky little shit was just standing there with a grin on his face.

“Nice of you to fall through the paneling,” he said. Nice of you shove me through it, Roy almost said.

Instead, he pushed himself up, trying to ignore how his soaked pants were now stuck to him in the most uncomfortable way.

“What are you aiming for this time?” Roy asked. The brat shrugged.

“Not stealing anything,” he said. “I just wanted to talk.”

“Talk.” Talk was why he’d dragged Roy on a chase halfway across town in the middle of the storm. Roy’s life was unbelievable sometimes.

“Well yea, I mean, I can’t just march into the precinct.”

Roy’s hands twitched and he had to consciously tell himself not to reach for his gun.

“Sure you can. People do it all the time. Upstanding citizens who report crimes the normal way, instead of with badly written messages and wild goose chases.”

The man’s face lit up for a second. “So you got the letter?”

“How’d you know my name and where to find me?”

He at least had the sense to look a bit embarrassed. “I might have rummaged through your wallet a tiny bit when you were knocked out. Hey! Stop that! I didn’t take anything!” Roy was already checking through his wallet again and counting his bills. “There wasn’t even anything worth taking, you cheapskate.”

Roy huffed and put the wallet back.

“Guess they don’t pay you much for working in the public sector huh?” The kid was clearly just trying to get a rise out of him at this point.

“Not all of us have the luxury of leeching off society’s coffer.” The man looked pleased at Roy’s response and stepped closer.

“Speaking of which, I hope you found out about the -”

“Tax fraud? The bribes? The working conditions at Youswell? Or is there more?”

The man let out a low whistle. “Damn, I’m impressed. So where’s the conviction huh?”

Roy was wondering the same himself. It seemed the bribes had been going on for years, and Yoki was obviously also expecting Roy and his team to look the other way from the way he called everyday to demand they catch the thief already.

“It’s really not that simple.” Roy weighed the pros and cons of what he was about to do, hesitated, and decided it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing he’d done. Wouldn’t even make top five. “It would be a lot easier if you worked with us.”

A pause and then the man doubled over laughing, clutching his sides. Roy glared helplessly until he recovered.

“No thanks,” he said simply. “Though I can’t wait to tell everyone you basically just propositioned me.”

Roy spread his hands out in a gesture of peace. Hawkeye had always told him he was too soft-hearted for this job. “If you work with us, I’ll do everything I can to give you and your team impunity.”

Those were apparently not the right things to say. “You bastards gonna bend the rules again huh?” He looked like he had more to say but was holding back. “Anyways, I have to go. It looks like your handler’s gonna be here anytime now.”

Hawkeye was _not_ his handler.

Roy bit that back, and instead, “Wait, I know you still have more information. I -”

“Hey look, a no is a no okay?” the man said, and was already backing off into the darkness. Roy briefly contemplated raising his gun, but that could only worsen the situation.

“Just think about it,” he said instead.

The man glanced back one last time, muttering so softly Roy wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear, “Where were you bastards when my old man walked out on us?”

~~~

“So he called you out to talk?” Hughes said around a mouthful of fries. “That’s it?”

Roy shrugged. “Seems like it. Nothing was stolen, no one was harmed.”

“I can’t believe that Hawkeye would let him escape.”

Roy coughed around around his soda, and tried to cover it up with a large bite of burger. Hughes stared at him with huge disbelieving eyes. 

“No way. You didn’t.”

“Please don’t make this worse.”

“You snuck out to take this case without her?”

“No. Well, yes.” Roy tried to remember what his explanation had been when she’d confronted him the following morning with barely concealed murderous intent. “The tip had been made after hours, and I didn’t deem it necessary to call her back into the office. Besides, I had the overnight team working with me.”

“How’d you even know it’d be him?”

“Gut feeling.”

Hughes was staring at him weirdly, but thankfully let the subject drop. “Okay, so what do we know so far?”

“He’s half insane and has a penchant for the dramatic.”

“Right. And he has a little crush on you.”

“What?” Roy rounded on his friend.

“He called you out! _You_ specifically! Just to _talk_.”

“That does not mean -”

“Okay, okay, fine, so let’s just say he has an interest in you.” Roy didn’t appreciate getting cut off every other line. When had this become his life? “He also apparently has a pretty organized crime team, even if they don’t specifically commit crimes per say.”

“He also has daddy problems.”

Hughes snorted next to him. “You did _not_ just say that.”

Roy ignored him. “His father probably left his family at a young age. Somehow that’s connected with his disdain for the police.”

“And you got this all from your talk?”

Roy shrugged and tried to ignore the fact that every second this case wasn’t insane it was heartbreaking.

~~~

The letters continued for the next month. Roy began to weirdly look forward to them, even though he had no way of communicating back. He’d been worried he’d scared the man off after their last talk, but it didn’t seem like it. The letters were mostly paragraphs of creative insults, and sometimes tips about suspects in the latest crimes. Sometimes before the crimes occurred.

Somehow, whatever he’d said in their last talk had obviously elevated him in the thief’s mind, and they had reached a sort of - trust? - truce. Officially, Roy was still investigating the Youswell burglary case, even if there didn’t seem to be ample evidence for further investigation. Unofficially, he kept the letters the man sent to him in a folder at the bottom of his drawer.

 _What_ ’ _s your name?_ Roy had written at the bottom of one in a moment of desperation. _How do I even contact you_?

The third time they met, it was at the scene of a completely different case. Roy saw him lingering at the periphery and when he turned, he knew that the man had seen him too. He looked split between running and standing his ground, and Roy only prayed it was the latter while he sorted through the things that needed immediate attention.

When he finally had the time, it was significantly later so he was pleasantly surprised to see the man sitting on a low wall in the same side street Roy had spotted earlier.

“Hello.”

The man grinned back. “Took you long enough.”

Roy stopped several feet away. “I was thinking the other day that I didn’t even know your name. It doesn’t seem quite fair does it?”

The man tilted his head, as if considering it. “Won’t help you in catching me, you know.”

“I’m aware.”

The man stared at Roy, and Roy refused to humor the part of his brain that told him he was being sized up.

“Equivalent exchange then. Ed.”

Roy smiled. “Hello Ed, I’m Roy.”

Ed smiled back. Without being in the middle of a crime and not clouded by the haze of adrenaline, Ed looked almost peaceful. Serene. A ray of gold against the city’s backdrop. Roy had to stop waxing poetic.

“Why do you do it? The crime.”

Ed shrugged. “I don’t _do_  crime, as you put it. I really had no choice.”

Roy frowned. “Of course you do.”

Ed looked up again. “No, I don’t mean like that. I’m not a starving rat, so don’t take pity on me. It’s just, my brother and I have been trying to fix a lot of problems on our own, and he’s been trying to get me to get the authorities involved. Lots of good that’s done.” He eyed Roy again, and Roy had to bit his tongue to stop the urge to defend himself. 

“Well, too bad you guys are part of the problem,” Ed continued. “Well, I guess you’re okay.”

Roy somehow instinctively understood what high praise that was coming from Edward. 

“And I guess something like government corruption can’t be solved that easily by a bunch of kids, as you’d put it, right?” 

Roy had a really bad feeling about this. 

“So… you started the scene hoping we would show up and investigate the owner? That’s it?” Roy asked. 

Ed nodded, like the insane vigilante he was. “Yup.”

How was this Roy’s life? “Because you wanted to talk?”

Ed grinned back at him. “Cool, glad you got it.” 

Roy frowned. He really shouldn’t ask but, “But what if we were just as corrupt as everyone else? I could have you arrested.”

Ed cracked his knuckles. “Well, then I would have done a lot more than just give you a concussion.”

Without another word, Ed flipped over the wall and disappeared.

~~~

The letters kept coming. He even got one a few days before Thanksgiving with a badly drawn turkey at the bottom. He sincerely hoped that Ed was enjoying his holiday with family and loved ones. Hawkeye frowned every time she passed a letter onto him, but said nothing otherwise. There hadn’t been another theft like the one they’d encountered months ago.

The next letter was noticeably different.

 _How the hell did you find out where I live??? What the fuck, stay the fuck away! If I even smell your grimy ass cologne around here I_ ’ _ll personally kick your ass!_

Roy had finally caved and went to Madam Christmas for information. Then he’d sat with Edward’s address in hand for nearly two weeks before he finally mailed the letter. He hadn’t meant to at first, just penning it for fun like he’d done with the replies on each of Edward’s previous letters.

 _My dearest Edward,_ Roy wrote back to Ed’s latest letter, 

 _Rest assured that I have no plans of doing anything with this information other than to converse with you. It gives me much joy to finally be able to reply to your eloquently worded letters_.

 _P.S. I_ ’ _m honored you enjoy my cologne._

Edward’s reply - _You write like an old man. How old are you even?_

Roy laughed at that. _Just over thirty. What about yourself? It_ ’ _s difficult to judge when I know seven year olds taller than you._

Ed’s letter came crumpled up and written in bold black sharpie. Roy laughed and briefly considered framing his reply.  _I turned TWENTY this year you mind-numbing asshat. Get a new pair of glasses you blind geezer because I am MOUNTAINS taller than a brat. Who the hell are you calling so tiny he still gets the kids menu at restaurants?_

For a week, it snowed almost everyday in Central. Roy sent him a pair of hand warmers and wishes for the holidays, concluding with:

_Sincerely yours,_

_Roy Mustang_

He contemplated crossing out the last bit and starting a fresh letter, but ultimately left it. 

Ed’s next letter arrived a few days later, a week before Christmas. It was as insulting as each of the others, except for the ending: 

_Sincerely yours if you can catch me,_

_Edward Elric_

_**~~~** _

Roy wasn’t surprised by the figure he saw leaning against a lamppost two blocks from his house. It was five minutes to Christmas and the streets were otherwise deserted. Edward looked positively radiant, haloed by the glow of the lights. He straightened up as Roy approached. 

“Hello Edward,” he said. He looked different in a bright red coat - and Roy realized, with a lurch of his heart, that red and gold would never look more perfect than on the man in front of him. 

“Hey,” Ed replied back. He looked to the side before clenching his fist and looking up. “I saw the news.”

Roy couldn’t help it. “I’m glad you keep up with it.”

Ed looked like he was going to punch Roy in the face, and Roy would probably deserve it. “You know what I mean!” He did. That afternoon, they were finally able to deliver the indictment on Yoki. 

Roy shrugged. “I guess you can consider it an early Christmas present.” The tips of Ed’s ears were red. “It was mostly due to your help that we could do it.”

This time Ed really did shove him, albeit gently. “Oh shut up.” Was he blushing? “You - uh, I mean. You looked good up there. Delivering the speech.”

“Thank you,” Roy said, and meant it. Next to them suddenly came the cheer of Merry Christmas from one of the apartment buildings, followed by many more around them. Roy took out his phone and showed it to Ed. “I guess it’s officially Christmas.”

“Yea,” Ed said, and then so sincerely it could break his heart, “Merry Christmas Roy.”

Roy closed the distance and leaned down the barest bit to whisper, “Merry Christmas Edward.” He reached out, tentatively, terrified, to brush his fingers along the hair at the back of Ed’s neck. This close, he could feel Ed’s breath against his cheek. “I guess I’ve caught you.”

Ed furrowed his brows, confused for a second, before he grinned back. “Yea, sincerely yours and all that shit,” he said, inches away from Roy’s lips before he leaned in. 


End file.
